THE PRAGMATIC BUDDHIST April 1, 2015 Volume 2, Issue 4 © The Sensei' Cushion - Meghan Ruddy Sensei: Chapter News Why do we practice if not to change? Change ourselves, change our cultures, change our worlds. In April the Chapters will be focusing In previous essays we’ve discussed why people change (because they’re given good reason to) and where our on The Eightfold Path. The individual cultures lie (within each of their members). Now we make a very important connection. We may practice and session topics are listed below: begin to notice changes in ourselves, but how do we begin to make changes in our cultures, in the worlds of human endeavor that surround us? An important question to ask is Shaner sensei’s third inquiry as written in The Seven Arts of Change (2010): Whose St Louis Center for Pragmatic culture is it? If we perceive that the cultures in which we find ourselves (family, friends, work, neighborhood, Buddhism: nationality…) are not our own, are outside of our influence, we are correct. We are parts of those cultures in so far Weekly meetings continue on as they shape our conditionality but we are passive, dried leaves being flung about in the winds of whim and folly Thursday nights. The Dharma Talks comprised of the actions of others. But if we practice for purpose and meaning, if we practice intentionally to for February are: develop our potential to flourish, if we work to own the culture as it exists within us, we can authentically own ourselves and the power we exert on our cultures. /\ April 2: Wisdom: Appropriate View; Appropriate Intention April 9: Ethical Conduct: Appropriate Speech; Appropriate Action; Impermanence: The Hope and Joy of Buddhism Appropriate Livelihood People suffer because of selfishness; yet there are no permanent possessions. This life is a state of loss April 16: Moral Culture: Appropriate and change; therefore let no one cling to anything as “mine”. Effort; Appropriate Mindfulness; Appropriate Concentration Everything that one calls “mine” is left behind at death. Having realized this a follower of the way will April 23: Living the Eightfold Path: let go of “mineness”. Life is our monastery April 30: Pragmatism and the Atthakavagga Sutta Eightfold Path This is the hope of Impermanence. This is what we’re called on to realize. There is nothing that is ours because Central Ohio Center for Pragmatic nothing remains the same. Nothing remains with us when we die because we do not remain. We have nothing to Buddhism: renounce because there is nothing that is ours; and when we realize this - not just in our minds but in our hearts - The schedule for April is: we have let go of the selfish grasping of the second Noble Truth and the Dukkha that permeates life in the first Noble Truth can no more cling to us than the water can cling to the lotus leaf. Impermanence is also seen in our Apr 5 - Appropriate View & Intention tradition as the raison d’etre of the practice of meditation. Apr 12 - Appropriate Action & Speech Dogen Zenji says: Apr 19 - Appropriate Livelihood & Effort Zazen is not "step-by-step meditation". Rather it is simply the easy and pleasant practice of a Buddha, Apr 26 - Appropriate Concentration & the realization of the Buddha's Wisdom. The Truth appears, there being no more delusion. If you Mindfulness understand this, you are completely free, like a dragon that has obtained water or a tiger that reclines on a mountain. The supreme Law will then appear of itself, and you will be free of weariness and confusion. West Georgia Center for Pragmatic Buddhism: In the Zen/Chan lineage it is by letting go of the twin illusions of permanence and possession that “the truth The CPB-West Georgia is moving to a appears, there being no more delusion”. This is what we practice in zazen, the letting go of illusion, the letting go new location closer to downtown of permanence. Atlanta. More news coming later this month or check This is also the joy of Impermanence. Being impermanent I must live fully in this present moment. Accepting - no www.pragmaticbuddhism.org embracing - our impermanence opens us to this way of mindful living in the present moment. We may never pass this way again so we need to experience every moment - as opposed to every thing - that life has to offer. Smell the grass - or the traffic. Stop to wonder at the beauty of the sunset, or the snow. Open your arms to the nurturing moisture of the rain. Neither they nor we will ever be in this situation again. The past is already dead - as the same sutra also says, “Just as a person awakening does not see those things they met in dreams; so a beloved person will no longer be seen when they have died.” And this refers not just to the final death but to the death of each moment. We mourn when someone finally dies, yet we let ourselves be distracted from them when we’re sitting together at dinner - and that dinner will never come again. It is dead. We take pictures to remember a moment - and forget to actually experience it. We spend evenings out together looking at our phones and updating Facebook rather than embracing the moment, the food, the drink, the music, the person. These are the things that impermanence calls us to correct in our lives. Continued on page 2 1 THE PRAGMATIC BUDDHIST April 1, 2015 Continued from page 1 This living in the present moment has to walk a delicate line - neither veering into hedonism on the one hand nor nihilism on the other. We must be neither trapped in the sense pleasures of the moment nor should we stop planning for the future and working to increase human flourishing just because all things pass away. Dependent Origination tells us that even though we may pass away the things we do keep producing rippling effects throughout time. Even though the flourishing we engender passes away it will itself engender further - and greater - flourishing in the future. This though isn’t an easy practice. Sometimes I think it might be easier to renounce the world and go meditate in a hermitage; but we can do it - or at least we can try to make progress. Take a first step and stop referring to anything as “mine”, even in your mind. The car you drive isn’t ‘my car’, it’s ‘the car I drive’. Your money isn’t ‘my money’, but ‘the money I have for now’. Your family isn’t ‘my wife, my husband, my children’, but ‘the people I love’. As you let go of “mineness” you’ll find that dukkha as well will no longer cling to you. Like the lotus you’ll rise from the muck of possession and give birth to the flower of compassion. Finally, we Buddhists don’t live passionless lives because of impermanence. We don’t forgo happiness because it will pass away. We don’t refuse to love because we’ll eventually lose that person we love. Rather, we should experience our emotions more fully because we know they’ll pass away - yet we strive not to cling to them and not to get trapped by them. Impermanence isn’t just our hope but the seat of our joy as well. We are not to be dispassionate but simply not ruled by our passions. Feel what you feel. Love who you love. Have without greed. Let go without loss. These are the ways of the Wise; not denying what is, but experiencing it knowing that it is neither ours nor will it ever come this way again - if I can use the theme of half the proms in the country. And then you will have let go of selfish grasping and found your security in Nirvana. Shi Ge Jie Glenn Gustafson deshi, OPB Illustrations by Lawrence Akers, OPB On the Zafu: Tips on Meditation Why We Sit The practice of sitting is essential to "train the brain"--the place where our minds emerge--to pay more attention to our everyday experiences, so that we might embrace a deep awareness without attaching unnecessary linguistic labels to our experiences. We may call this nonjudgmental awareness. While practicing zazen, the human brain changes its physiology to induce a more relaxed and deeply calm state of awareness. Over time the brain itself changes its underlying structure to increase the actual capacity for awareness. Thus, with experience and time, the brain is able to remain aware of more aspects of our daily life than before training began. As David Kalupahana reminds us: Early Buddhism (the Buddhism of Siddhartha Gautama) emphasizes the fact that a beginner is not in a position to reach the final state of freedom all at once, but only by a gradual process of training, gradual working out, and gradual practice. If we have an increased capacity for awareness, we are better able to navigate our world with effectiveness and happiness. Because of this insight from modern science--a valuable "tool" for understanding our world--we see that the teacher is right, and there is more to zazen than "just sitting!" 2 THE PRAGMATIC BUDDHIST April 1, 2015 Who are Pragmatic Buddhists? Meet Dan Williams, Formal Student I began my spiritual life after ending up in jail a few times and attending a 12 step program for drug recovery. It was suggested that I find a Higher Power, and the search was on. After 15 years of wandering through a variety of religions, I read Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen and thought to myself 'Well, that makes sense'.